


Playing the Game

by meyari



Series: Hospitality [1]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2011-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyari/pseuds/meyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick is one of Lord Bruce Wayne's cherished harem slaves but unlike his fellow slaves, Clark, Jason and Tim, Dick finds it hard to be content to stay in the harem all the time.  Of course, Lord Bruce knows about his occasional escapes.  Over the years they've turned his escapes into a sort of game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the Game

As much as Dick appreciated Lord Bruce's care, he frequently found himself missing the ability to wander as he willed. At night, it was okay. There were always things to do, people to save, adventures to have as the mysterious Nightwing, but during the day, it was different. The harem protected them all from the people and institutions that would have destroyed them, but it also confined. Unlike the others, Dick often found himself chafing against those constraints.

Clark spent most of his days dozing in the sunlight, soaking up the energy that gave him his strength. Jason trained, either lifting weights or sparring. Tim spent all his free time reading, curled up with books as though they were portals to another world, one where he was free and powerful instead of a lowly harem slave. Of course, Lord Bruce had yet to allow him to become one of the Dark Knights of Gotham, but it would come in time, once Tim calmed down. Still, each of them coped just fine with the restrictions that went along with being Lord Bruce's protected harem slave, which made Dick wonder as he slowly wandered out of the common room and down the hall if there was something wrong with him.

He never had been able to stand staying inside, even though he knew the consequences of leaving for a slave and gypsy like him.

He knew every single inch of the harem, every room, every sealed window, every door. Over the last few years, he'd become convinced that he'd memorized where every single board joined on the floor, down to the point that he could count them with his toes. This one was raised ever so slightly on the left corner. That one had a nail coming up; he really needed to remember to tell Alfred. Someone could trip on it.

"I am so bored," Dick sighed.

He stood and stared at the doors that blocked him from the rest of the manor. Alfred had said that they had no guests currently, just the standard courtiers and a messenger from Lord Oliver. If he could open the doors, there would only be a few of the hopeful courtiers that always clustered around Lord Bruce as if they could convince him to give them money and power just by being there. Dick had never understood how they could miss Lord Bruce's intelligence. The man was an incredible actor but he wasn't that good at being a brainless fool. His eyes always gave him away, at least to Dick and the others in the harem.

Dick tested the door, not surprised that it was securely locked from the outside. Lord Bruce always locked the door when he left. Those courtiers weren't exactly trustworthy and far too many people would regard the occupants of the harem as perfect candidates for kidnapping, which meant that Dick really shouldn't be fiddling with the lock and trying to open it.

"Not again," Tim sighed from the other end of the hallway.

"I just want to see if I can open it," Dick said without looking back at him. "I won't go anywhere."

"Dick…." Tim padded away, shaking his head and sighing over Dick's persistent inability to follow the rules of their lives.

Even though he knew that Tim was right Dick stayed where he was, using hairpins from Clark's room, a tiny sliver of a knife from Jason's room and a lot of stubbornness to try to get the lock open. Lord Bruce had replaced it after the last time Dick escaped to wander the manor; the new lock was much tougher than the previous one.

"Ha!" Dick grinned as the lock finally clicked open.

He put the knife and hairpin away, grabbing a sarong to wrap around his hips. After the one time he'd wandered around naked Dick knew better than to do it again. Having to lie down to eat had gotten really old after the first week of Lord Bruce keeping his ass glowing from all the spankings.

As Dick eased the door open, his heart pounded with a combined rush of fear and excitement. It didn't matter that this was forbidden, that he'd inevitably get in trouble or even that he'd disappoint Lord Bruce. He had to get out and roam, explore the other rooms of the manor and maybe even poke his head outside to smell the flowers in the garden beyond the windows, though if anyone saw him do that they'd probably assume he was trying to escape and the punishment would be even worse.

The hallway was empty, just more closed doors and elegant wood paneling. Dick turned right at the first corner and headed upstairs, unwilling to risk someone thinking that he was trying to escape. The second floor landing led to a third and then Dick peeked before hurrying down the hallway. He'd never been up to the third floor during the daytime. It looked much more cheerful with light streaming in through the great windows. Someone, Alfred of course, had left the doors to the many rooms open, probably to air them out.

First room was a bedroom with forest green drapes and covers. The second had a sitting room done in somber blue and red stripes that adjoined to a bedroom with similar decorations. Dick ran his fingers over the bedspread, smiling that the blue stripes were velvet and the red stripes were smooth. When he ran his hand over the curtain, it made him shiver. He so shouldn't be here.

A golden bedroom followed where Dick spent much too much time grinning and touching absolutely everything in that room. Then he slipped onwards, finding burgundy, brown and a peach bedroom that was such a frilly horror that he had to stare at everything for what felt like forever. He could feel the minutes ticking by, knew that his illicit roaming would inevitably come to an end very soon. Lord Bruce seemed to have a second sense for when Dick slipped out, though at times Dick thought that Alfred was the one with the secret gift of Sight because he seemed to have eyes on the back of his head.

Instead of heading back to his proper place, the harem, Dick continued checking out the rooms on the third floor. He had to duck into one of the hall closets and hide once he hit the end of the hallway because he could hear Lord Bruce and someone else coming up the stairs.

"Really, it's so kind of you to allow me to borrow it, Bruce," the other person that Dick recognized as Lord Bruce's old friend Lord Dent.

"Not at all, Harvey," Lord Bruce said in his casual, lazy, not at all an intelligent Lord voice. "It's sat there for three generations gathering dust. I'm sure that Alfred will appreciate not having to dust it."

They laughed but Dick's heart leaped into his throat when Lord Bruce's knuckles knocked twice on the door to the closet. How he'd known that Dick was hiding in the closet, Dick had no idea, but he obviously did. A minute later, Lord Bruce and Lord Dent wandered by, chatting about Lady Selina's latest misadventure at court. Dick opened the closet door a crack, listening hard until he heard Lord Bruce make an apology to Lord Harvey, saying that he forgot something that he was going to get from one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Dick grinned and ducked out of the closet, running down the hallway towards the other stairway. Lord Bruce's voice carried down the hall after him, but it was the sound of Alfred coming up the stairs in front of him that had Dick darting into one of the open rooms. He hid behind the door, breathing hard and trying not to laugh. This was far too much like playing tag before his parents died or being out patrolling.

"Sir, is there something wrong?" Alfred asked. It sounded like he was right outside of the room Dick was hiding in.

"Just the normal," Lord Bruce said. There was a laugh in his voice that made Dick bite his tongue so that he wouldn't laugh in return.

"Ah, I see, Sir," Alfred said. "I shall make sure that the ointment is ready for your young charge's punishment."

"I don't think it will be a spanking this time, Alfred," Lord Bruce said. "That obviously wasn't effective last time."

"Quite so, Sir," Alfred said, his voice carrying down the hallway. "Quite so."

Dick held his breath, listening as hard as he could for the sound of Lord Bruce's footsteps. He could hear movement but it was too indistinct for him to tell exactly where Lord Bruce was. After a long while, the sounds shifted further away so Dick eased out from behind the door. It was risky peeking but Dick got lucky. Bruce's back was turned to him so he darted across the hallway, unfortunately into the frilly peach bedroom.

"You're just making this worse, Dick," Lord Bruce said as Dick slid under the bed and froze.

Footsteps sounded, coming straight to the room that Dick had been in. From his spot under the bed, Dick could just see Lord Bruce bend down and run his fingers over something on the floor. The bedskirt hid Lord Bruce's face, but his fingers tapped the floor as if he'd spotted something there. Dick bit his lip again so that he wouldn't squawk when Lord Bruce stood and walked to the peach bedroom. His toes tapped inches from Dick's nose before he walked around the bed.

"Out," Lord Bruce said, abruptly reaching under the bed to yank Dick out of his hiding place.

He yelped and then tried to fight his way free but Lord Bruce caught his kick and then pinned Dick underneath him. If it had been anyone else, Dick would have been frightened but they had been playing this game for so many years that all Dick could do was laugh helplessly as Lord Bruce caught his limbs and eventually pinned them.

"Why do you do this?" Lord Bruce asked, a smile flirting at his lips.

"It's fun," Dick said with what would have been a shrug if he'd been able to move more than an inch in any direction. He grinned impishly at Lord Bruce's quiet laugh.

Where Dick was hard as a rock, Lord Bruce's cock was soft where it pressed against Dick's hip. It wasn't a surprise. Dick had known for ages that Lord Bruce saw him more as a son than as a sex partner, but sneaking out and the inevitable punishments that followed always got him going. There was something about being chased and caught that did it for him.

"I obviously haven't been keeping you busy enough," Lord Bruce said. He tugged Dick back to his feet and then kept a firm grip on Dick's wrist so that he couldn't bolt to continue the game.

"Jason's completely stuck on Tim," Dick explained. "He hasn't wanted to play with me since Tim arrived. And Clark sees me like a son, for the most part."

Lord Bruce grunted and nodded, hauling Dick out of the peach monstrosity of a bedroom, down the stairs and back to the harem. He seemed to be taking it seriously, though Lord Bruce always took everything seriously. His grip was firm but not damaging at all and they went slowly enough that Dick could eye the rooms he hadn't seen during his 'escape'. When Dick heard someone coming up the hallway Lord Bruce tucked him close and shielded him from their eyes. It wasn't until they were in the harem with the doors securely locked again that Lord Bruce looked at him with mingled amusement and sterness on his face.

"You could have said that you were bored," Lord Bruce said.

"I know," Dick admitted, not scuffing his toes the way he wanted to, the way he used to when he was younger. "It's more fun this way."

Lord Bruce snorted and shook his head. "If you'd said you were bored," he explained, "I would have told you that tomorrow I'm bringing one of the slaves to court and intended to take you."

Dick's horrified squawk made Lord Bruce pat his arm and smirk.

"Now it will be Jason instead," Lord Bruce said, "and you'll spend the rest of the afternoon in bondage. Luthor will be there so it can't be Clark and I don't think Tim is ready to go out. He's still unhappy about the whole situation. I will see what I can do to keep you from being bored, Dick. I know that you're not made for confinement like this."

"It's okay most of the time," Dick sighed as Lord Bruce led him to the central room where the others were sitting and pulled out the straps. His cock was twice as hard from seeing them. "I just… get to the point where I have to roam. I deliberately went up so that no one would think I was trying to run away. I don't want to leave you. I just… want out sometimes."

Lord Bruce nodded and ruffled Dick's hair fondly. They put the gear on together, Dick shivering with arousal and Lord Bruce amused but not aroused, settling Dick comfortably on one of the low pallets scattered around the room. Once he left again, Clark sighed and went back to his sunbathing. Tim came over, sitting next to Dick nervously.

"You're… okay?" Tim asked. He seemed to think that the bondage was a horrible thing from the expression on his face.

Dick nodded and shrugged as much as he could. It wasn't comfortable being bound this way but it was okay. Exciting. There were messengers in the house and courtiers and maybe Lord Harvey would visit the harem tonight. No matter what, Dick knew that Lord Bruce would keep his promise to Dick.

Something would happen to keep him from being utterly bored. Hopefully soon.


End file.
